Lena's Blessing Day

I was unable to take Lena's pictures until a little later, unfortunately she was cranky and her outfit was soiled. So this is what happens.

I really wanted to take a picture of the shoes. They are shoes that our grandmother made and all four girls in my family wore them to their blessings...course we were all summer babies.

Here is Erin loving the car. She really enjoyed playing in the big car.

I love random silly pictures...so here is Izzy or Isabelle picking her nose.

This is Heath's sunday outfit. So fun, I just had to take a picture...ok so I took a few.

Kyla, Celia, and Rebecka played dress up. They are so beautiful. Celia loves playing with her cousins and is always so excited to see them.

New Year's Day

New Year's eve we spent the night at my parents house. The next day we went to a new local park. It was lots of fun. Mom climbed the rock and was so proud of herself. She did awesome.

John spun himself so dizzy and then ended up on his back, but was hilarious to watch.

Erin was as cute as ever.

They also played a little teeter totter. Sometimes it is so nice to just play and be a kid and have fun. John is pretty good at that, one of the reasons I love him. He has always made me laugh, even the way he says things is so creative and fun.

Christmas

We started our celebrations Christmas Eve by doing our annual building of the gingerbread house, which over the years has gotten better and better and it took less time than other years.
Then we followed with the annual tradition of opening up a present - yep pjs every year. Celia really liked hers.
Christmas morning, this is what Celia woke up to and she really enjoyed herself. She had a much better response than on her birthday which made me very happy. We all had a fun time. John was very happy and excited about his car parts. I will have to do a post sometime about Stinky - John's project car.

This rather ugly looking thing was our dog's, Maze, christmas present. It had a picture of a rot on the tag and it said it was a toughness of 9. This is what it looked like less than an hour after we gave it to our dog. He is a very strong chewer. It didn't even last a day.

Lena, the newest Duggan on Christmas.

Celia looking oh so cute with her flower she picked. I decided to use the opportunity as a photo shoot.

The last few years Jared and Alicia have sent all the nieces and nephews $20 for Christmas. This is what Celia got with her money this year. She loved everything she got and gave the rest to one of those donation bins in the store. She liked to watch the money go in.

Georgia Aquarium and Centenniel Park

Here is the crew minus me that went to the aquarium. It was loads of fun. A lot of work, but a lot of fun. We went when they had a sale of $20 per adult if they went with a child. A mother's day out promotion. It was a great day. Celia is on Kevin's head, Daniel is in his lap and Kyla is in Rachel's lap. LaFae let us borrow Kyla for the day to take advantage of the deal.


Kyla was so cute all day and really enjoyed herself and all the attention.
She even loved the aquarium mascot.

After the aquarium we went across the street to the park and it was not too long after that Celia tripped and landed on some stairs to the play equipment. This is the end result of that day's clumsyness. It went away and she no longer has that lump. Fun times fun times.

This slide was the hit of the park and they really enjoyed going down it. It really is quite fun, it feels like a little butt massage as you go down.

Babies.....

Celia has really been interested in babies lately. Maybe because we know about a billion pregnant ladies or ladies who just had babies. Well just before my niece was born Celia started talking to me about wanting to hold babies. So in order to prepare for this, I have been having her practice with her dolls. Well the practice paid off because she did and excellent job holding the Peterson baby. She was so happy I thought her smile would never end.

Celia is 4!

I can't believe Celia is 4. To celebrate we had the family over for a party and a couple really close friends. Which was quite a number of people in our little humble abode. We had fun, though.

Aiden is the one posing in this picture as Celia opens her present and her friend Destiny looks on. Celia loved all her presents and it has amazed me how much she is playing with all of them. She has especially liked to dress up lately. This was a dress up party in case you are wondering why some people are dressed up.

Rebecka decided to help Celia open her presents. Celia really enjoyed doing this...I will have to figure out how to download video and put the clip of that morning on. She did not have a great response to the presents mom and dad gave her.

We tried to take a few group shots of the kids...yep our dog Maze decided to join with the kids....

Aren't these two girls beautiful....Amy and Christina Humphrey. Hard to believe I have a niece in college.

Heath and LaFae Duggan....aren't they cute... bet you never would guess she has a 1 month old baby.

We decorated cookies and they really enjoyed that. Destiny and Celia look so good in their princess dresses.

Kyla Duggan and Daniel Embry. They are only a month different in age....Too cute. I am lucky enough to watch this cute funny little man during the week.

Tabitha is getting so grown up....this year she goes to young womens. She is beautiful.

Emily Humphrey and Charity Campbell met that day, but quickly became friends. Their birthdays are about a month apart and they really enjoyed hanging out together. The cookies were a hit.

My sister Rachel makes beautiful cakes and she really does have fun doing it. The kids got to this beautiful barbie cake and the icing rather quickly. Rachel has made this cake 2 times in a row for Celia. I said we could do something else, but Celia insisted upon a barbie cake...

Elvira

So here is the story.... Kevin thinks Celia's middle name should be changed to Elvira. I kind of see his point ("I want to love them and squeeze them and hug them forever"). January 2nd my husband decided to buy Celia some fish to fill this glass bowl we had. He brought them to her just before bed time and she only got to see them, name them (Frankie and Eleanor) and wish them good night. While John and I slept the next morning Celia decided to play with her fish. I woke up to a drenched thermometer, water on the table and Celia talking about holding her fish. Needless to say that her fish did not even last til the afternoon. Just FYI in case you have never owned any fish, they don't necessarily float to the top when dead....So here are some pict of the whole event. Oh and yes we got her new fish (Charlie and Lola) and they have almost made it a week. She has learned her lesson....

She had no problems taking her fish out and it only took a little talking to her to get her to say goodbye and put them in the toilet. Poor Eleanor and Frankie such a short traumatic life at our house.


Charlie and Lola....hopefully they will have a better life.

It appears our cat Sophie is also a big fan of the fish....the bowl is already dirty because they really require such a little amount of food and we are still trying to get that right.

Thanksgiving Day Half Marathon

On Thanksgiving morning I did my 3rd Half Marathon and finally got the time I wanted. I was also so happy to do it with my husband and a couple of guys he knows from the army. John did awesome and placed 80 out of 509 for his division. He finished in 1 hour 43 minutes and 43 seconds. (7:55 minute miles).

There were 8,697 people who did the race that day. They corralled us and I think most of us felt like livestock waiting for the race to begin. Cold livestock as the temperature was a little cold 30s. John placed 957 out of the whole group and I placed 2,759. I placed 148 out of 777 for my division.

I finished the race in 1 hour 56 minutes and 50 seconds (8:55 minute miles). Just so you can know how I have improved over the years....the first time I did it in 2005 I finished in 2 hours 4 minutes and 9 seconds (9:43 minute miles)...the second time I did the half marathon in 2007 (with LaFae and Amy) I finished in 2 hours 2 minutes and 22 seconds (9:28 minute miles). All the physical therapy has appeared to help because although I was sore, my hips did not hurt and I was able to walk away without feeling every step in my hips. Now I move on to the goal of doing another half and a full this year. Now that I know I can do it without killing my hips and being able to walk, besides I want some runner legs.

FERT....

I don't have pictures this time, but feel a need to write some thoughts down. I have been married 8 years now. Less than 2 of which we have done anything to prevent pregnancy. I have one beautiful, fun, sassy girl of which I am eternally grateful. However, I have always wanted 7 children just like my family and my husbands and both sets of grandparents. I figured it was my lucky number. After a year and a half of trying the first time, I went to the doctor. I went through a very not fun round of tests only to hear that we were both picture perfect. They gave me some clomid to help the process along and that was that. Until I had a kidney stone two months later and stopped taking the medicine. All the testing for the kidney stone stuff revealed I had a cyst. Which I now took care of itself. I finally got pregnant with Celia more than 2 years after I started trying. I was so afraid that it was going to end in a miscarriage that I really tried to tell as little people as possible for a while. Luckily, nothing went wrong. Then after Celia was born, I was slightly tramatized by delivery and wanted to do a half marathon. So we waited and prevented for a little less than a year. I just knew it wouldn't take as long the second time around. I even felt like I was pregnant once.... but no, it has now been more than 3 years. After a year and a half again I went through all the testing. This time going to a fertility specialist. Still nothing showed up as wrong. They once again gave me medicine and all that has come from that is a very cranky Jenny that can't even stand to be around herself.

I can't even begin to tell you how many people have said it will happen when it happens and it is all about the Lord's timing. I know these little tidbits of facts, but they just don't help to ease the pain of never being able to get what you want and having no control over it. I am so happy for all those wonderful ladies that surround me that are blessed with babies, but it is also so challenging to be around that. Most people are working on their 3rd or 4th....

Anyways, after years of this I finally have felt like I have some answer this year. I have read a book Taking Charge of your Fertility. Through following the lovely taking my temp every morning and everything else I found some answer. I have cysts and not every month do I ovulate. I never expected to have a doctor confirm this, but this last month I had an ultrasound done and it was finally comfirmed. I have cysts on both my ovaries...the plan of action is to wait 6 weeks and see if they go away on their own. I have no idea after that. Does finding an answer help? I don't know yet. I am still waiting to find that out.

I am grateful for this experience because of how much I can understand others that have gone through something similar. I know that I will someday open my house to anyone who needs a home, whether it be adoption, fostering, or just taking anyone who needs someone to love them. I wish I was able to afford that or had a more stable home to be able to do this, but I know now is not the right time. So to all my friends who have/are going through this. I feel your pain and love you and know that in the end it will make us stronger....or at least hope.

October's Many Events

Ok, I am having a heck of a time trying to move these pictures around the way I would like, so I will just make do with the way they are.

This is LaFae's shower toward the end of October, only weeks before she delivered. Mom and Fae look awesome and it was a really nice time with the girls.

I love this picture of Amy tasting the goods to really know what kind of candy bar is that poop lookin stuff.

Every year we go up to north georgia and go to Burts Pumpkin patch and Amicolola falls. I probably spelled it wrong, but oh well. At any rate it is a tradition that we love and these are just some cute photos that happened from it. This year our friends the Campbells went with us, but somehow I didn't get pictures of them...better luck next year.

I loved this one (above) so much that we used it as our Christmas letter picture. Thanks Campbells for taking it.

The annual carving of the pumpkin. It came out pretty cute.

Sorry forgot to flip this first. Anyways, Celia in her Pocohontas costume. She threw the biggest fit before and after the picture. She said pocohontas does not wear her hair in braids and does not have a thing on her head. Course Disney's version does not so I let her get rid of it after the pictures were over.

This is Celia and Daniel, they always amaze me with what they think up and how much trouble they can get into.

Celia just finished proving that she knows all her uppercase and lowercase letters by sight. Now she is ready to read some easy books... She has since learned how to read 3 Bob books. She is way smart....now if she just knew her numbers by sight.

I love this picture. We went to a farm and rode a hay ride and had fun with the ward play group. Here she is playing with corn and a tractor.

This is the group at my parents house on Halloween night. Don't they look great. I wanted to include a lot more individual shots, but there would have ended up being a ton of pictures, so this one will have to do. We had fun trick or treating as a family, though.